I ordered a three-cup French Press a while back. Apparently Bodum uses a vastly smaller size of “cup” than everyone else, since it makes three espresso-cups-worth of coffee, which ALMOST fills a single coffee cup.

I love this comic, but I did feel the need to point out that if he gets off the ship, and he bursts into flames, they would have wanted Fahrenheit instead of Celsius due to 100 degrees being hotter that 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So, the correct context would be “The planet builders must have wanted Fahrenheit. =)

@Solstice Zero – No, this is the correct way around. Biff requested the ambient temperature of the planet be 100 degrees (thinking they asked for Fahrenheit). He got a planet that is 100 degrees Celsius.

@ Chris – Sorry, but I find your explanation to be as enigmatic as the confusion pointed out by Solstice Zero. I still don’t get who asked whom for what, and where does Biff fit in the picture, before he did so as a pile of ashes. Biff is dead. Long live Biff. (Does this mean Biff shall return again as a traveler among The Phoenix Ashteroids?)

But I was actually wanting to sort out the confusion about all the asking. I fear I might go on at great length if I were to continue by explaining the extent to which I have misunderstood so far. But I must say something. I believe I must be native to Kakrafoon after the enloudenment, you see. I must continue to generate distracting matters of complication, lest I leave anyone else of my kind to sense how truly full of myself I am.

It is also reasonable to suspect that some part of my physical anatomy might, in a selfess effort to save this world of Biff, become sentient enough to catch on to what the guiding sentience of my being is up to, and conclude that it’s only recourse is to reach up and throttle my brain back into oblivion. And so I, myself, believe I must escape this window forthwith.

I initially thought there was a mix-up too.
Planet-builders said “Yo, you want the planet how hot?”
Biff followed with “100 degrees will do, kind sir”
Biff realized his mistake as he stepped off the ship into a planet with an environment at a nice toasty 100 degrees Celsius, like the Builders were asking for.

“Look robot the stars are coming out. The twin sunset I’ve never anything like it in my wildest dreams, like great mountains of fire boiling in to space.”
“I’ve seen it it’s rubbish.”
“We only had the one sun at home. I came from a planet called earth you know?”
“Yes you kept going on about it, it sound awful.”
“No it was a beautiful place”
“Did it have oceans?”
“Yes great big wide rolling blue oceans.”
“Can’t bear oceans.”
“Tell me do you get along with other robots.”
“Hate them.’

I was almost confused at first, thinking Biff was delivering temperature to the planet. Then I realized that he was ordering from the Planet Builders.
Still, 100C wouldn’t kill you instantly…. Would not be comfortable at all, though. That’s the temperature of boiling water…

They crash-landed a Boeing 767-200 in Gimli, MB because of that. They had just switched to the metric system and because of a conversion error, the plane took off with less than half the fuel it needed to get from Montreal to Edmonton. It ran out of fuel over Red Lake, ON and glided (yes, GLIDED) to Gimli, where it landed on an old abandoned military runway. On top of that, the landing gear didn’t open. You can still see the skidmarks on the runway. No one was hurt.

I never got anything mixed up like that in a long time. Besides, the only thing that happened that is remotely similar was I received something in the mail that didn’t fit my lifestyle. I bought some CDs from a German record company and they sent me the discs I want…along with an empty refillable lighter.

Hah, I immediately assumed Biff ordered in Kelvin, shows what a science geek I must be.
If he wanted Kelvin but got Celsius, then stuff really would be burning!
(Kelvin is the same size as Celsius but plus 273 so 300K = 23C)

So… Odd, considering that I knew today was Friday, having just returned from my working Thursday night, but when I looked forward this morning to how this week will end, I had thought there would be one more left, because I had only joined in Thursday, thanks to fellow traveler’s heads up on the ZZ9 Yahoo! group, and I miss-counted back, thinking that Dent had started us off. Now what?

Perhaps the theme Monday could be “And Another Thing…” But if you know why, don’t speak yet. Let’s just wait, shall we? And see what an infinite monkees will be. I’m off again for now, hoping to arrive next having found myself later gone in a Random direction. -poof-

unit differences can be quite annoying, on in the states, car fuel efficiency is advertised in mpg, which uses the imperial system, so i have a fun time converting it to the Canadian standard of Litres/100km

sheesh, the states needs to adopt the common international standard already, so i don’t have to blankly stare at a menu until i realize 12oz = 355 ml

Buying stuff for dressmaking is a pain. All clothing sizes are worked out from inch measurements, but fabric is sold by the metre, not by the foot.
Clothing sizes in other countries are easy to work out, because most sites have a sizing chart – but shoe sizes are the biggest pain. Trying to go from Australian to European shoe sizing is a nightmare.

I’m stuck between feet and meters. I can’t even remember how most of the measurements of the system the US uses work…. The sooner we switch to the metric system the sooner I’ll probably be able to figure this out.

@ Chris: Has it ever been mentioned just what these points are good for? I’d wager that this week’s were only exchangable for ningis.

I’d guess they were good for pobble beads as well, but I don’t know enough about them. It is quite likely those are actually poratble assets, albeit assets which only exchangable for equally non-convertible ones.

I once ordered a book on Medieval Welsh poetic forms–unfortunately the description of the book in the catalogue forgot to mention that it was, in fact, in Welsh. Does that count? And is there anyone out there that would care to translate the book for me into English? 🙂

@steve-o: what do you mean “Am I missing something here?” have you never read THHTTG? Get some sense of proportion.
oh, wait, “the one thing [a sentient being] cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.” (~p66, TRATEOTU I own an e-book copy, so i don’t know the proper number)

PS: Don’t Panic. Given the extraordinary confusion and miscalculation of scale awash about the universe, this may prove to measure a distance of time more or less equivalent to a number of small dogyears. Or perhaps it’s only just a suffusion of yellow.

As they probably don’t say, but then again who knows, “Time is pobble beads. It’s OK to rack up a few of them. Just be careful how you do the Bistromath.” Meanwhile the hours, if not actual minutes, are good…

Knowing Biff from this comic he must be like someone i know and would have ordered the planet at well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Also @Dzelda

Unless Centigrade does not equal Celsius I believe that is wrong.

to avoid a science lesson stop reading this comment

According to my Grade 12 Biology class C3 plants photosyntheses optamises at abour 20C, however a reverse process called photo respiration optimizes at about 40C. At some point the photosyntheses starts to go BACKWARDS!

C4 plants (and another type that i don’t remember avoid photorespiration and as a result thrive at higher temperatures.

I wasn’t going to comment, though I like this one, until I saw that the title of the comic is “Slartibartfast” and it made me so happy that I had to thank you. So thanks! It’s awesome that you used that.